Undergraduate Research Experience At Community Colleges

社区和部落学院是未来STEM工作者的关键来源，这些人来自目前STEM学科中代表性不足的群体。为了让这些机构的学生对STEM职业感兴趣，并鼓励他们坚持STEM专业，重要的是他们在大学的头几年拥有真实的研究经验。在这个项目中，东爱荷华州社区学院将确定本科生研究课程的有效性，作为给社区学院学生提供真实研究体验的途径。该项目还将为伙伴社区和部落学院的教师开发一个研讨会，帮助他们有效地开发和教授这些研究课程。这一伙伴关系中的六所学院中的每一所都将开发一门研究课程和相关的案例研究。研究主题将以当地社区为中心，让学生参与收集和分析数据。因此，学生将真正参与到研究中，研究主题将链接到对学生和当地社区重要的问题。这些课程将结合为期两年和四年的伙伴机构之间的衔接协议来设计。预期传播由此产生的课程及其评价将增加学生，包括代表人数不足的少数族裔学生在STEM领域的入学和坚持性。此外，该项目可能有助于大学将新的方法制度化，以扩大未被充分代表的少数群体在STEM领域的参与。这个项目的发现将通过项目网站与全国其他社区学院分享，可能有助于对包容性教育学发展的全国性见解。这项拨款的教育研究部分将研究学生在这些研究课程中的经验，以回答四个问题：1)参与研究课程如何增加社区学院学生在STEM学科方面的知识？2)参与研究课程在多大程度上提高了这些学生对STEM学习的兴趣和参与度。3)参加研究课程在多大程度上增加了社区学院学生完成STEM学位的动机？4)该项目的活动在接触目标群体方面取得了多大的成功？课程材料和研究成果都将广泛传播，特别是针对全国其他社区学院。由于社区大学的人口结构通常比四年制大学更能代表周围社区，实施这些想法应该会改善全国STEM学科中代表不足的少数族裔的比例。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Community and tribal colleges are a critical source of future STEM workers from groups that are now underrepresented in STEM disciplines. To interest students at these institutions in STEM careers and to encourage persistence in STEM majors, it is important that they have authentic research experiences in the first few years of college. In this project, Eastern Iowa Community College will determine the effectiveness of undergraduate research courses as an avenue to give community college students authentic research experiences. The project will also develop a workshop for faculty from partner community and tribal colleges, to help them effectively develop and teach these research courses. Each of the six colleges in this partnership will develop a research course and associated case studies. The research topics will be centered in the local communities and involve the students in both gathering and analyzing data. As a result, the students will be authentically involved in doing research and the research topic will link to issues that are important to the students and their local communities. The courses will be designed in conjunction with articulation agreements between two- and four-year partner institutions. It is expected that the dissemination of the resulting courses and their evaluation will increase the entrance and persistence of students, including underrepresented minority students, in STEM fields. In addition, the project may help colleges to institutionalize new approaches to broadening the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. The findings of this project will be shared with other community colleges across the country through the project website, potentially contributing to national insights about inclusive pedagogy development.The educational research component of this grant will study the student experiences in these research courses to answer four questions: 1) How well does participating in research courses increase community college students' knowledge in the STEM disciplines? 2) How well does participating in research courses increase these students' interest in and engagement with STEM learning. 3) To what extent does participating in research courses increase community college students' motivation to complete a STEM degree? 4) How successful were the project's activities in reaching the targeted underrepresented minority students? Both the course materials and the research results will be disseminated broadly, particularly targeting other community colleges around the nation. Since community colleges have demographics that are usually more representative of the surrounding communities than four-year colleges, implementing these ideas should improve the fraction of underrepresented minorities in STEM disciplines around the nation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.